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What's Annoying Me 1. I tried really, really hard to spend some cash on Saturday. Really hard. I tried on twelve pairs of pants at the Gap. Do you know how many of them fit correctly? Zero. ZERO. I wanted to get the world's only perfect jeans in another wash because you just don't want to sport the dark denim all the time. None of the other washes fit the same. The sandblasted wash gapped at the waist. The sandblasted black were too short (in the regular) and too long (in the long). Why, why, why can't I pick up the same exact pair of pants in the same exact size in a different wash and have them fit the same? Why? (I also tried on seven pairs of pants at Banana Republic and none of those fit either.) 2. I spent my entire undergraduate career writing papers using the MLA citation style. Last week in class our professor tells us that he'd prefer if we used the Chicago Manual of Style. This wasn't mentioned in the syllabus or brought up at all until last week. Our paper's due in four weeks. He said MLA is "okay" but he'd rather the other. Well, he's getting MLA from me, because I don't have time to learn a new citation style. 3. Our slimy President and his slimier Administration are doing it to us again - first they snuck the USA Patriot Act in before the public had time to realize what it was, and now they're trying to pass a horrifying energy bill that includes, among other things, a repealing of the Clean Air Act and billions and billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil, coal, nuclear and gas industries. The Republicans locked the Democrats out of the final negotiations and gave them (and the public) 48 hours to review a 1,000 page bill. According to the Washington Post, the GOP authors dropped the Senate-approved plan to require large utilities to increase their use of renewable energies. The bill also requires no improvement in the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks and repeals the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which limits the mergers of the utility industry. Hello, monopoly! Welcome to the US! You can read a truly terrifying summary of the bill here at moveon.org. But who needs to breathe, right Mr. President? More pollution means more asthma medication, which means more money in the pockets of your friends at the pharmaceutical companies. 4. There is a Hummer dealership in my town. I live in a town bordered by towns where there is so much money that we need an entire fucking Hummer dealership. There is no need for this vehicle to exist outside of the military. No need. Blanket statement about to follow: if you own a Hummer, you are socially irresponsible. Period. I make that statement without exception. No one needs a Hummer. No one needs a vehicle that gets less than ten miles a gallon. No cellphone chatting society mother in my town needs a Hummer. I have seen exactly one Hummer in my town with more than one person in it. I'm sorry - you need an armored vehicle to run out to Trader Joe's for your soymilk? To pick up your kids from school/go to the movies/fetch a pizza you need a military-issue vehicle? A vehicle that takes up two parking spaces everywhere, has no turning radius, and is impossible to see around? A vehicle that will kill me if it hits my Honda Civic? No. You don't need it. You may want it, and if you want it then you should have it, of course, because this is the land of consumerism and because you are wealthy then you should have whatever you want and damn the consequences. You know what? Why not buy a less expensive, more Earth-friendly vehicle (anything, for the love of God - an Escalade, a Navigator, or, I don't know, a Prius) and donate the rest of that $50,000 (or, if you're truly insane, $100,000) to charity? Or buy clothes with it. Or burn it. Anything. 5. Did you know they place stop signs where they place them for a reason? If they wanted you to pass the stop sign and slam to a stop at the edge of the intersection, then the stop sign would be at the edge of the intersection. You, the people who pass the sign altogether and stop at the intersection rather than stopping at the sign and rolling forward slowly, making the people passing you think you're not going to stop at all? You are assholes. Cut it out. Your time is not more important than my life and you give me a heart attack on a daily basis. Stop at the sign. 6. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let Jimmy Kimmel speak in public should be slapped. 7. Greg and I watched the final episode of Sports Night and now there are no more. I'm glad I didn't watch this show while it was actually on (we're not a Neilsen family, so we wouldn't have helped the ratings) because I would have been truly heartbroken (as I was when Freaks and Geeks was canceled) instead of just annoyed. 8. I had four hours sleep. Four. 9. We planted fall bulbs yesterday and my butt feels like I did five hundred squats. The sitting down and standing up? Not fun today. 10. We received four copies of the Marshall Field's catalog. I don't even want to receive one copy. I definitely don't want four, addressed to Greg, me, me under my former married name, and Greg's ex-wife. 11. Two radio stations in Philadelphia have already flipped over to 24-hour holiday music. Why? WHY? And when did My Favorite Things become a Christmas carol? Santa has been at the mall for two weeks. Doesn't Santa want a longer vacation? Just because I shop for Christmas all year (so my December isn't insane - I have a paper to write) doesn't mean I want to hear Christmas carols while shopping from Halloween on. Bah. |
